The Best Parts of Being a Missionary

Being a missionary simply means spreading God’s word to others. This may mean doing it across the street from where you live and it may be living in a foreign country. I cannot personally speak for everyone, and I certainly cannot speak for home missionaries. But I would like to share some of my thoughts. Perhaps others will resonate with this and perhaps they won’t. Here are the best parts of being a missionary (for me, personally). Stay tuned for the worst.

Relationships

I have always been a relationship person. I enjoy getting to know people. I don’t always feel like I do a great job at this but it is something I work out. Being a missionary opens you up to having so many relationships with others. When I first moved here, I focused on relationships with other missionaries and with my students. It’s crazy to me, most of the other missionaries I never would’ve met in any other circumstance. Now, those people are my family. There are relationships with staff, either our awesome Haitian home missionaries working with RMI or the wonderful people that work in my home. To me, these are all people that God has sent my way. Not necessarily for me to minister to, but to have a relationship with them. Many, many times these people minister more to me than I do to them. Then there are the other relationships, the ones that happen unexpectedly. I have told the story before of the woman at the grocery store. (You can check it out on my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Love-you-to-Haiti-and-back-360457367775603. Spoiler alert: she names her baby after me.) The cool thing about relationships is that there is no end in sight. You are in that relationship, for the long haul, and not for any reason other than just loving that person. The relationships that God allows us to have should be cherished.

Learning

Learning is a constant in life. I have heard it said that a good teacher must be a good learner. I am no longer a teacher by trade but I hope I am a good learner. Learning brings so much new life into your world. As a missionary, you are constantly learning new things. Maybe you are learning a new language (Haitian Kreyol for me). Every time you understand something for the first time you feel the need to do cartwheels. You are also learning a new culture. The US is a culture of innocence and guilt while Haiti is a culture of honor and shame. It is fascinating to me to learn about why people do the things they do and how they live their lives. You are also learning a lot about God and who He is. He can open our eyes to things daily, and not just those of us that are missionaries. Lastly, you learn about yourself. In the past few years, I have learned more about myself than I ever have. I don’t think all of this combined learning would’ve been possible if I weren’t living where I am.

Seeing God work

That’s pretty vague, huh? You hear that a lot, though. People say, “I just love to see God work.” But what does that mean? I love seeing the way He moves the trees around in the wind and the way He makes the ocean waves. I love seeing Him in the face of people worshipping Him. I love hearing Him every morning in devotions as another one of His servants brings His word. I love watching Him comfort a child through our HFKz staff or grow a church through our teams and our PFs. I love getting to see what God has done over time, not just in that moment. I love the small everyday miracles that He brings to life. This is what I mean when I say I love seeing God work.

There are many, many more wonderful things about being a missionary. Some of which I cannot even begin to put into words. All of this to say, thank you. Thank you, God, for calling me to this life. Thank you to those that have been supportive, encouraging, and prayerful through it all. And thank you to those who I get to live this life with. Let’s close with another one of my favorite things about being a missionary, the food! Banann peze, diri kole, veritab, mango, juice, pates…